LIHEAP funding needs are real

The Nonpareil (Council Bluffs, IA)
August 27, 2002

Our Position: Elderly will choose heating over food, medication.

State officials who are tracking what’s been happening with the Bush administration say as many as 13,000 Iowa households that have used federal money in the past to help pay energy bills may be out in the cold this winter.

It all depends on how much money will be provided in the next few weeks to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP.

President Bush, citing last winter’s relatively warm temperatures and reductions in overall energy costs, wants to reduce last year’s $1.7 billion LIHEAP allocation to $1.4 billion, a reduction of 18 percent – perhaps to start a next egg for any future attack on Iraq.

LIHEAP funding is part of the massive Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill that must be approved by Congress next month. To underscore his determination, Bush has already said he would veto any bill that calls for more than $1.4 billion for LIHEAP.

At the program’s peak, the annual federal allocation was $2.25 billion.

Bush is also sitting on another half a billion in LIHEAP emergency funds that he has trickled out. He authorized expenditure of $100 million of $600 million in available emergency LIHEAP funding this summer to help with soaring utility bills resulting from abnormally high temperatures in many parts of the nation.

Last year, Iowa received $31.1 million from that $1.7 billion pot, and that helped serve 75,357 households. If the president’s proposal is approved, Iowa would lose $5.5 million, meaning 13,000 less households would get these funds.

Last year’s mile weather and reasonable fuel prices did reduce federal assistance. About $220 was provided to each of the Iowa households that were serviced in the LIHEAP program. The year before, when the winter was harsher, an average of $500 was provided.

In the current fiscal year, the West Central Development Corp. has served 6,160 households – some 88 percent of which are not on welfare – in a 10-county area and has provided about $1.4 million through LIHEAP funding. Of the total number of households, 2,220 were in Pottawattamie County. The average monthly payment through the program has been $220, and many of those payments went o the homes of elderly residents who are struggling to make ends meet on fixed incomes.

A survey completed by Iowa’s Bureau of Energy Assistance two years ago offered osme frightening findings. The elderly folks on fixed income will give up medications and food to pay their utility bills.

The administration should step back and take another – and certainly more humanitarian – look at its recommendation for LIHEAP funding.